Capture (Butch Karp Thrillers) (18 page)

“Enjoy it now, because it’s about to change,” Erik sneered. “And Crawford?”

“Yes, sir?”

“The next time I want your opinion, I’ll cut it out of you.”

Across the river from where Crawford blanched at Erik’s threat, Karp left the Criminal Courts Building and found Dirty Warren waiting for him. The little news vendor was hopping from foot to foot, his face twitching. “Holy shit, Karp…piss on your motherfucker…you work long hours.”

“Hello, Warren,” Karp replied. “You’re out a bit late yourself.”

“I wanted to…crap crap whoop shit…whoop…give you a message,” Dirty Warren stammered as he wiped at a drip of snot on the end of his nose.

“Well, okay, what is it?” Karp asked, wondering what could have agitated his odd friend so much.

“Andre Previn was just seventeen years old and had just joined MGM’s music department when he played the piano music for this 1947 film,” Dirty Warren said.

Karp’s jaw dropped. “You stood out here freezing to ask me movie trivia?” He rolled his eyes as if to suggest Dirty Warren was crazy, which he was.

“Just answer the…motherfucker…question, asswipe.”

Karp looked sideways at Dirty Warren.
Was that the Tourette’s or…?
“It’s not even a tough one,” he said. “The answer is
It Happened in Brooklyn
starring Frank Sinatra, Peter Lawford, and Jimmy Durante, among others. If you’re going to freeze to death just to try to catch me tired at the end of a long day, you’re going to have to come up with something better than that.”

Dirty Warren shrugged. “It wasn’t my question…ooooh boy ooooh boy.”

Karp smirked. “What’s the matter? Got to bring in reinforcements?” He expected the little man to smile at the insult and retort, but instead Dirty Warren looked worried and mad.

“It was that guy who’s been hanging around…suck tits…sometimes lately,” Dirty Warren said. “He wears a big hoodie sweatshirt so nobody ever sees much of his face. I think he’s crippled and deformed or something. Anyway, he must have heard us playing movie trivia the other day…lick me Martha whoop whoop…and this afternoon said to ask you that one.”

The pickpocket,
Karp thought as he looked around, hoping to see the man.
I’d love to ask him a little trivia myself.
“You could have asked me tomorrow,” he said. “Why’d you wait?”

Dirty Warren looked around to make sure no one was listening. “I don’t like the guy…bastards bitches bitches…he gives me the creeps,” the news vendor said, staring intensely at Karp through his Coke-bottle glasses. “But I figured he was just another…ooooh boy boy oooooh boy shit cunt…insane street person. But then he said that he knew Lucy and my antennae went up. How’d he…shit piss oh boy oh boy…know her name? He made sure that I understood he was trying to pass on a warning in his riddle. He kept saying ‘It’s the worst that could happen.’ That’s just how he said it, ‘the worst that could…oh fuck me naked scrotum…happen.’ So I figured you better know sooner than…cocksucker sphincter…later.”

At that moment, a blast of frigid air came whistling up from the concrete and steel canyons of the Financial District. Dirty Warren cried out at winter’s early bite, pulled his thin coat around his skinny body, and started to scurry off but then stopped short. “Oh, and he said to tell you to think about the…motherfucking…view.”

“The view?” Karp asked.

Dirty Warren shrugged. “Yeah, but don’t ask me. My brain is frozen solid. Just think about the view, that’s all he said. With that, he turned and disappeared down Franklin Street and into the darkening evening.

Karp shivered, but more from what he’d just heard than from the night air. He started to walk home while punching in a number he had for Jaxon. There was no answer, so he left a message. “We need to talk. And by the way, if Lucy contacts you, tell her to phone home.”

T
HE TWO
A
MERICAN TOURISTS SIPPED THEIR BEERS AND
chatted at the open-air bar, seemingly oblivious to the crowds wandering the busy plaza on the other side of the street. Some who noticed them that evening, including several prostitutes, thought they might be gay. Otherwise, what were two tan, good-looking men—one middle-aged and the other in his early twenties—doing alone together when there were so many beautiful women available in Port of Spain, the capital city of Trinidad?

A more careful, or suspicious, observer, however, might have noted that one or the other was constantly keeping watch on a business advertised as Trinidad & Tobago Dairy Products, Inc., across the street on the other side of the plaza. It would have taken an even more alert pair of eyes to have registered the Asian businessman sitting on a park bench eating a hand-carved papaya, and the Indian-looking T-shirt vendor, as well as several local black men who also kept track of who entered and left the business.

Jaxon noted with satisfaction the placement of “Asian businessman” Tran Vinh Do, and John Jojola, the former chief of police for the Taos Indian Pueblo, as well as the members of the Trinidad national antiterrorism agency. But suddenly he ducked to hide his
face behind Ned Blanchett, who had his back to the woman walking toward them who Jaxon had recognized.

“Shit,” Jaxon exclaimed under his breath.

“What?” Blanchett replied, tensing for a fight.

“It’s that reporter, Ariadne Stupenagel. She’s coming this way.”

Blanchett cringed. He knew the reporter would recognize him, too; she was one of his future mother-in-law’s best friends, whom he’d met on several occasions. “Did she see you?”

“I don’t know,” Jaxon replied. “I turned and she was looking right at me.” He chanced a peek around his partner and slumped. “She’s making a beeline for us.”

“What do we do?”

“Hope she knows how to take a hint,” Jaxon growled. The agent stepped out in full view of the approaching journalist and looked straight at her. However, he continued talking to Blanchett and gave no sign that he recognized her.

Ariadne slowed her stride, then caught the hint and continued toward the two men. She sat on a stool next to Ned, but other than a flirtatious smile, she said nothing to indicate that she knew them. The bartender showed up quickly to take the drink order—a strong local rum called
babash
and pineapple—for the statuesque blond in the strapless sundress. He gave a slight nod toward the two men next to her and shook his head before leaving to fetch her drink.

“My, my, you never know who you might run into in the islands,” she murmured while turning her head to watch the bartender walk away.

“Hello, Ariadne,” Jaxon replied, though he kept his eyes on Ned. “Small world.”

The conversation ended when the bartender returned with Ariadne’s drink. He looked again from her to the two men and back again before shrugging and going on about his business.

“The bartender thinks you’re gay and that I’m wasting my time,” Ariadne said, taking a sip.

“What?” Blanchett scowled and threw a hard look toward the bartender.

“Don’t worry about it, honey.” Ariadne laughed. “It’s a good cover. Usually spies and undercover agents are too macho to use it
unless, of course, they really are gay. But you should go with it…everybody in Trinidad figures every white guy is either with the DEA, the FBI, Homeland Security, the NSA…or the Russians, or the Chinese, or the Venezuelans…”

“I wouldn’t know anything about that,” Jaxon said, turning toward her as if just starting a bar conversation. “We’re just here on vacation.”

“So you really are gay?”

“Hell, no,” Blanchett sputtered indignantly before Jaxon patted him on the arm.

“Don’t let her get your goat, cowboy.” Jaxon chuckled. “Yep, just a couple of bachelors enjoying some beach time and cold beers.”

“Yeah, and I’m here for the deep-sea fishing,” Stupenagel replied. “My guess is that you’re in lovely Port of Spain for the same reason everybody else is nervous about this place: Trinidad is the largest exporter of liquefied natural gas to the United States and a hotbed of radical Islamic activism. So, it’s about the LNG, isn’t it?”

“And what brings you to Trinidad?” Jaxon asked, ignoring her parry and chuckling as if she’d just told him a joke.

Ariadne smiled as she shrugged. “Same thing, except I’m going to write about how every spook down here and their government figures that sooner or later, crazy Islamic terrorists are going to hijack one of these LNG tankers, float it near a big population center, rupture the holding tank, and then ignite it. My sources tell me that the resulting fireball will melt steel and incinerate concrete—not to mention human beings—up to a mile away, and still have enough heat to leave second-degree burns on exposed skin two miles away. About as close to a nuclear explosion as a terrorist can dream, but without all that fuss with fission and smuggling weapons-grade plutonium in suitcases.”

“Pretty tough to pull off in a U.S. port.” Jaxon laughed as he signaled for two more beers. “LNG tankers have to provide ninety-six hours’ notice of their approach, and the Coast Guard is all over these tankers as soon as they hit American waters. They’re inspected and checked for explosives. Then they’re escorted to the terminal facilities by a small navy and air force that includes tugs, helicopters, and armed Coast Guard cutters.”

“Yeah, and there’s no way a bunch of raghead terrorists with box cutters were going to hijack airliners and crash them into commercial and government buildings,” Ariadne scoffed. “Some of those facilities in the States are close enough that hijackers could make a run at a waterfront population area. Hell, there’s a floating facility at the mouth of the Long Island Sound. And it’s a big ocean out there, even the Coast Guard can’t be absolutely sure that a friendly captain is who he says he is.”

“So are you learning anything new?” Jaxon asked, then laughed as if he’d told a joke and rubbed Ned’s shoulders, causing the younger man to jump.

“Well, I think we have a right to be afraid,” Ariadne said in a low voice. “There’s something going on, but I haven’t been able to find out exactly what it is. Twenty years ago, radical Islamic plotters staged a bloody coup, trying to take over the government of Trinidad and Tobago and turn it into an Islamic state. The coup was put down, but the main players—and a lot of new young recruits—have been rebuilding for another try ever since. The two major groups are Waajihatul Islaamiyyah, aka the Islamic Front, and Jamaat al Muslimeen, and the fact that they are back and worse than ever is not a good thing. Along with the goal of establishing an Islamic state in Trinidad, they’ve declared holy war against American and British interests in the Caribbean. Of the two, the Islamic Front is openly allied with Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda. Islaamiyyah is tied to a terrorist organization by a similar name in Indonesia that was responsible for the bombing in Bali a few years ago.

“Jamaat might be the worst of the lot. After the coup, they basically turned into a bunch of Muslim thugs—more gangsters than religious fundamentalists, though they couch everything in the rhetoric of radical Islam. A few years ago, Trinidad ranked second worst behind Colombia for kidnappings—especially the wealthy and politicians—to make a buck. They also deal drugs and do murders for hire. But at their core, they’re still committed to an Islamic state. Right now an American-born member of Jamaat, whose father immigrated to New York City from Trinidad, is on trial in Miami for attempting to buy arms—including AK-47s, grenade launchers, and antiaircraft missiles—through a Florida
mosque. He intended to smuggle the weapons into Trinidad for another coup attempt.”

Ariadne paused as two prostitutes, who’d suddenly wondered if they’d allowed an interloper to snag two potential clients in their territory, walked up. “Why are you talking to this white cow,” one said, putting her arm around Ned, “when you could be having fun with us?”

Standing up, Stupenagel, who was several inches taller and outweighed the bigger of the prostitutes by fifteen pounds, growled, “Get your big ass out of here, sister, before I kick it up around your ears.”

The woman’s eyes narrowed, but she hadn’t expected the hard-nosed reaction. She noted the muscles in the white woman’s arms and decided she was not a soft American, nor could she afford to be arrested again. “Watch your back, bitch,” the prostitute sneered, and sauntered off with a nod to her companion to follow. “If you two gentlemen want something with more spice, we’ll be over here.”

As she sat back down, Stupenagel saw the amused look on Jaxon’s face. “Glad I was able to provide a little comic relief, Espey. Anyway, the minister for national security in Trinidad is smart and tough and knows what he’s doing, and his antiterrorism squads are well trained and resourceful. So far they’ve kept the radicals in check. But everybody here knows, and I suspect you do, too, that all it takes is one slipup and thousands could die in an instant…. So, now that I’ve told you what I know, would you mind telling me what you’re here for?”

“Vacation,” Jaxon replied.

“Even off the record?”

“Even off the record.”

“Well, then I guess you wouldn’t be interested in a guy named Omar Abdullah?” Stupenagel caught the looks on the men’s faces and chuckled. “Remind me to set up a poker game with the two of you when we get back, I’ll own your pensions.”

Jaxon laughed. “No doubt. So this guy…what’d you say his name was? Homer?”

“Omar, but I could tell by the looks on your faces that you already knew the name,” Stupenagel said, “which means you’ve read his file
and know that he’s with Jamaat and committed to the cause. He’s perfectly willing to die in a glorious fireball for Allah.”

“So what’s he have to do with Trinidad?” Jaxon asked.

“You mean other than the fact that he’s here?” Ariadne glanced quickly at both faces and shook her head. “I wouldn’t just own your pensions, I’d win your firstborn children…if I wanted them…which I don’t. I have enough of a child in my darling Gilbert Murrow. How is my little Murry Wurry snuggle bunny, by the way?”

“I’ll be sure to refer to him that way the next time I see him at the DAO,” Jaxon replied with a laugh. “But the last time I spoke with him, he was missing you.”

“Aaawww, I miss him, too,” Stupenagel cooed. “He’s going to be one worn-out lover boy after I get home.”

“Uh, you were saying something about Homer being in Trinidad?” Jaxon said, changing the subject.

Stupenagel nodded. “Port of Spain to be exact. Or so I’ve heard from my sources; I haven’t actually seen him yet.”

“You know what he looks like?” Blanchett asked. “All I’ve seen are a bunch of fuzzy photographs.”

“I certainly do.” Stupenagel smiled. “After all, the Big O and I go way back.”

“The Big O?” Jaxon’s eyebrows shot up.

“That’s what I used to call him back when we were…friends.”

“Friends? You were friends with one of the world’s most wanted terrorists?”

“Well, perhaps a bit more than just friends.” Stupenagel giggled. “But back then you and the other American spooks were referring to guys like him as freedom fighters. I met him in Afghanistan in the early 1980s. He was fighting the Soviets as a foreign mujahedeen from Trinidad, and I was a young, horny reporter for the Associated Press stationed in Islamabad. I was interviewing him in the mountains and, what can I say, he swept me off my feet…. It was so romantic, sitting in his cave on the side of a cliff after making wild and scandalous love, watching Soviet helicopters searching the valley below…”

“You and Homer…” Blanchett said with a look of horror.

Stupenagel sighed. “Like I said, I was young and he was this gorgeous black hunk of Muslim machismo. Please, don’t tell Gilbert. It was a long time ago, but my Murry is the jealous sort. Anyway, Omar’s men didn’t like him consorting with a fallen woman like me—they said it was for religious reasons, but personally, I think they were envious. I mean, I saw what some of their women looked like behind the hajib, and no wonder they’re willing to blow themselves up. Anyway, Omar ignored them until the Soviets captured and tortured him; he escaped but he was a changed man, even more radicalized and violent. He told me I had to leave his camp, or he’d allow his men to stone me to death for ‘being a whore,’ which is just proof of the ridiculous double standard for women in the Muslim world.”

“I take it you didn’t stay in contact with Omar,” Jaxon said.

“No, I’m allergic to rocks and being bludgeoned to death,” Stupenagel replied. “And he just wasn’t a pen-pal sort of guy. I did hear that he had joined up with the Taliban and was training in an al-Qaeda camp when the United States invaded, and that he ended up in Pakistan with the rest of the rats. But now he’s back home and that worries me.”

“So is tracking him the reason you’re here?” Blanchett asked.

“No, I had no idea he was back in Trinidad until I got here and started nosing around,” Stupenagel replied. “My editor got a note from someone suggesting a story about the link between LNG tankers and potential Islamic terrorism, and I lobbied for the job. Anyway, I was talking to the national security minister about a group of fundamentalist Islamic schools in Trinidad and Tobago that are suspected of recruiting and financing terrorists when he mentioned that one of the schools was in Omar’s old hometown. I decided to visit my former lover’s old haunts when I picked up a rumor about a famous local jihadi who had returned to his native land. No one I spoke to seemed to know why he was back, other than that if the prodigal native son was in town, then something big was going down.”

“Anything else?”

“Hey, what’s with the non quid pro quo interrogation? Are you at least going to pick up my bar tab?”

“Let me buy you a drink…or four,” Jaxon offered.

Stupenagel smiled and signaled the bartender. “I’ll have a double and these kind gentlemen have offered to pay.”

The bartender looked surprised but shrugged and started making the drink.
Maybe these two are kinkier than I originally guessed,
he thought.